Welcome, Class of 2020!

Get to know the more than 400 members of the class of 2020 as they get settled into their new dorm rooms, say goodbye to their loved ones and participate in a weekend’s worth of orientation activities. Here are a few facts about the newest Hawks:

• The average composite ACT score of the incoming freshman class is 25.6. The national average, for reference, is 21.

• The incoming freshman class collectively owns a 3.69 GPA.

• The incoming freshmen represent 18 different U.S. states. The majority of students come from three of those states: Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska.

• Of the new students from Missouri, 37 percent are from Kansas City, and 29 percent claim St. Louis as their home, assuring the “pop vs. soda” rivalry lives on.

• As of right now, health care fields seem to be the most popular career paths for the new students: pre-nursing, pre-medicine, and pre-physical therapy are the top three majors, outpacing even those students who are undeclared.

• Stand on the quad and yell any of these names and there’s a good chance more than one head will turn: Emily, Lauren, Jacob, Mary, Margaret and John are the most popular first names. Miller, Williams, Bennett and Clark are the most common last names among the class of 2020.

• They might be first-time students, but they’re no strangers to campus — as of right now almost 28 percent of the class of 2020’s freshmen are legacy students, meaning a sibling, a parent or grandparent, or an aunt, uncle or cousin of theirs is a Hawk.

• There’s 10 years between the youngest and oldest freshmen in the new class: the oldest is 26 years old, born in 1990, while the youngest is 16, born in 2000.

• The tallest new student is almost certainly Gabe Brown, a transfer student and RU basketball signee from Stony Brook, New York, who is 7 feet tall. Watch your head in those doorways, Gabe.